Disclaimer: All recognizable Rizzoli & Isles characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners including, but not limited to Tess Gerritsen. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this fanfiction story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No financial gain is associated with the publishing of this story. No copyright infringement is intended.

Author's Note: I had started this chapter to continue the fallout from "When the Gun Goes Bang, Bang, Bang" (1x10), the fallout we never got to see after the first season finale, but I scrapped it after reading tlc125's comment about whether readers can follow a story if they haven't seen the episode. While this is all new content that the show never gave us, I wanted to do better to reflect the bones and structure of the show. Granted, if you haven't seen the series you likely wouldn't be reading this. I still would like to try. Thank you, tlc125. I actually anticipated something else happening with this story. Maybe there will be a sequel someday, but I decided that how I ended this chapter is really how I wanted to story to end. You never know where a story will take you until, BAM! you are there. Thanks for your lovely reviews. -dkc

To Get Me To You – Chapter Fourteen

Barry Frost did the only thing he could think to do; he held the catatonic doctor's hand. It reminded him of the night at the Dirty Robber when he noticed this woman and his partner discreetly holding hands under the table. As happy as he was for them in that moment, he was equally sad for them in this one. For all of their sakes, Maura's especially, Jane had to pull through.

"Jane!" Maura screamed as she watched the detective pull the trigger and send metal through her own body in the hope of shooting her captor.

The entry wound had gone through muscle, Jane's muscle. And nobody watching what felt like a slow-motion tragedy could actually see the entry wound to Bobby's torso. They didn't see the exit wound on Jane, either, not until the detective slumped to the ground. By then, on the sidewalk, it was clear how bad it was. There was blood everywhere. Bobby didn't have an exit wound. The majority of what stained the sidewalk came from one exit wound.

It was Jane's blood.

"Maura?" Frost spoke her name again; the third time aloud, the first two failing to pull her from the memory of watching Jane shoot herself.

Looking to the detective, she hoped he was getting her attention because there was news. They hadn't heard anything since they arrived at the emergency room. They had rushed Jane to the operating room as soon as she had been wheeled in and no one had come to speak to them yet.

Sudden sobbing could be heard in the hallway not far from the waiting room where Frost sat with Maura. Looking up, hearing the words the wailing woman was saying, the doctor realized why Barry was trying to get her attention.

"That's Jane's mom," Frost said to Maura. "I'll go."

As soon as he stood up he was concerned about leaving Maura alone. He knelt in front of her and caught her line of sight.

"I won't be long," he said reassuringly.

Maura barely registered the words the kind-eyed detective had spoken to her. Her eyes followed him as he walked across the room. It was the increasingly loud sound of crying that truly brought her out of her trance.

Oh, Angela.

oOo

Hours had passed, long, excruciating hours.

"Is there news on Jane?" Frank Rizzoli came into the waiting room where Frost, Korsak and Maura were seated.

The elder Rizzolis had been sitting outside Frankie's recovery room. Frankie's surgery had gone well and they were certain he would make a full recovery. The surgeon had credited the officer's perseverance to the emergency procedure Maura had performed in the morgue at Jane's urging. It was the first time the Rizzoli parents had heard anything of the events inside the precinct.

Putting on her hat as medical doctor, Maura stood, wiping away the wrinkles that could never be removed from her clothes. It was then she realized how terrible a sight she must be for a mother whose two children's blood was on her body.

"Jane is still in surgery," Maura's voice was raw, emotional. "They took Jane to surgery as soon as we arrived and expected the surgery would be complex."

Maura was relieved when Detective Frost stepped in beside her, a supportive hand on her back holding her upright.

"Complex? Like there were complications?" Frank Rizzoli directed his comment at Maura forcefully.

Barry Frost had never felt so protective of Dr. Isles. He stepped ahead of her and put out a hand, gesturing to the chairs.

"Why don't we sit down and wait for the doctor?" Frost offered the best smile he could muster in the wake of such trauma.

Once they were all seated and the quiet anxiety of waiting once again set in, Maura felt Frost's hand take hers once again. She took a deep breath, startled by his touch, before finding her body shedding whatever shock had remained. While she had studied the human body's reaction to trauma, the physiology of trauma, she couldn't put medical terms to what was happening within her now. It was heavy, unbearable.

"It's going to be okay," Frost held tight to her hand, whispering what he had repeated often as they waited. "Jane is going to be okay."

oOo

Dozing in a chair near Jane's hospital bed, Maura Isles looked like hell. Her dress was stiff from dried blood, her hair messy. Puffy eyes closed to the outside world hid the redness and pain within.

"Maura, honey?" Angela's voice woke the sleeping doctor.

Maura's head snapped toward the bed, afraid her friend had woken while she had been resting.

"She's still out," Angela said. "Why don't you go home and change? A shower would do you good."

It was now approaching daybreak. Jane had come out of surgery around midnight. The BPD had been adamant about Dr. Isles' staying with the detective despite the hospital's policy on surgical recovery. The Rizzolis had gone home for several hours once they knew both of their kids had made it through surgery. Korsak had gone back to the precinct to see how the investigation and cleanup was going. Frost had remained just outside Jane's room, dressed in a fresh shirt that Korsak had brought for him, speaking to the myriad of officers who stopped by with flowers or donations for the Rizzoli family. Every half hour he had looked in on Maura to find her either watching Jane intently or dozing.

"I won't leave her," Maura answered the Rizzoli matriarch. "I will be here when she wakes."

"Can I go pick you up some clothes?" Angela hoped Maura would finally rid herself of the bloody dress. "Maybe some breakfast?"

"The nurse offered me a pair of scrubs. I'll take her up on that offer when she comes for Jane's vitals at the top of the hour."

Angela nodded knowing the doctor to be as stubborn as her own daughter. She wouldn't push.

"Could you see that Detective Frost gets some breakfast?" Maura's thoughtfulness shouldn't have surprised Jane's mother, but it still managed to.

"Maura, dear, you have to take care of yourself. You'll be no good to Jane when she wakes up if you've collapsed from exhaustion and not eating."

While she didn't take well to being mothered, at least thought of it as foreign and unusual in her life, Maura would do anything for Jane. Angela was right.

"Perhaps a cup of coffee and a piece of fruit? Maybe a muffin," her words caused Angela to smile.

"Of course," Angela said before scurrying out of the room.

The doctor went back to watching Jane. The sight of the wound drain caused Maura to cringe once again. She had spoken at length with the surgeon; she understood what Jane's recovery would entail and how high the risk of infection was for this kind of injury. She also knew that Jane was extremely lucky. She had missed vital organs. However, the human body was not built for the trauma Jane's had just experienced.

Jane's beautiful body, Maura thought with great sadness.

oOo

"Mauuuura!" Jane's scream woke Maura from the first real sleep she had had in nearly two days.

It was a blood-curdling scream that likely startled everyone in the surgical wing. Frost suddenly appeared in the doorway to see that everything was okay. Maura was on her bare feet, dressed in a pair of clean green scrubs, next to Jane in a split second.

"Jane, it's okay," Maura placed a hand over Jane's wrist to check her pulse, knowing she could easily look at one of the many monitors for this information, but needing to feel for herself that her friend was alive. "You're in the hospital. You were…shot."

A dry, sardonic chuckle came from the stirring detective.

"Jane?" Maura was quite concerned.

"You could say that," Jane drawled.

Clearly, Jane remembered exactly what had happened at the precinct. She knew that not only had she been shot, she had been the shooter.

"Oh, God, Frankie?" Jane tried to sit up and groaned in pain when she couldn't make herself sit up even slightly.

Maura placed her hands firmly on Jane's shoulders to keep her from moving. She looked into Jane's eyes with every bit of sincerity and reassurance she could gather.

"Frankie is fine, Jane. He is resting."

"Oh, God," Jane began to cry. "Thank you, Maur, thank you."

With tears streaming down her own cheeks, Maura placed her forehead to Jane's.

"You're going to be okay, Jane. We'll get you through this. It isn't going to be easy, but I'll be by your side the entire way."

As the two women pressed their foreheads together, tears drying on their cheeks, the man who stood in the doorway, long forgotten by the doctor who had seen him arrive, knew a tender moment when he saw one and stepped backward to the door. Closing the door behind him, the hard close of the heavy door took Maura back to when the ambulance door closed with she and inside it. What was it Jane had said before they put her on the gurney and loaded her inside?

"Maur..." Jane's voice was raspy and quieted by the traumatic injury.

"Don't speak, you're going to be okay," the M.E. wished she could hold Jane's hand instead of having to keep the bleeding from becoming even more life threatening.

"I love..." she tried again to say what you needed to.

"No!" Maura insisted, tears streaming down her face. "This isn't—"

A siren arriving in the emergency bay somewhere beneath the fourth floor wing where Jane's room was located echoed that in Maura's memory of the ambulance arriving to get Jane.

"Jane?" Maura pulled back to look into the brown eyes she was afraid might never open again.

There had always been something in the way that Jane looked at Maura when her friend spoke. She had always given her undivided attention, hanging on every word the doctor spoke. How had she missed it earlier in their friendship? How had she not known?

"I love you, Jane," she whispered. "I…love you."

Jane's hand, attached to an oxygen sensor, came up to Maura's face, cupping her pale cheek.

And Jane Rizzoli smiled.

-finis-